The dispatch of a Russian Navy task force to the Mediterranean Sea is part of a scheduled exercise and is not connected to the situation in Syria, General Staff chief Nikolai Makarov said on Tuesday.

“We are not sending anything [to Syria],” he said.

He did not say when the exercise would take place.

Earlier in the day a Russian Defense Ministry source denied media reports that a group of Russian warships led by the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier would arrive at the Syrian port of Tartus in the spring of 2012.

Uh huh. Riiiiggggghhht. I would be very interested to know what the real story is here. Was the military freelancing? Was this a trial balloon that drew a rather hostile response from the US. (Along the lines of: you might want to reconsider that, unless you want to see how a real carrier group operates, up close and personal.)

Professor, don’t worry, you won’t have Senor Equis to kick around anymore, nor to admit your true colors when you make self-parodying statements like you’d rather see more bribes paid to the Pakistanis in a vain attempt to avoid blown up trucks and MREs littering the Khyber Pass than see another kopek go to the hated Russkies. I can see through it though, from time to time you like to poke some folks in the eye. And it’s no coincidence that the most fanatical here are or all have been on certain payrolls at certain times.

I’ll leave you with John Robb and the text of the law the Senate just passed.

And brother Alex is spotting those swarming IPs 120 seconds after his article goes up — thank God I still believe the military won’t follow illegal orders and start labeling everyone Al-Qaeda — judging by John Robb’s huge mil following

Posting comments online, even under a pseudonym, is not a particularly safe activity anymore in the United States of America. So I’m not just done here, I’m done everywhere.

And if any actual Chinese or Asians were offended by my joking comments, I apologize. The swarms here have never apologized for anything, including getting caught in lies or repeating blatant lies (here’s looking at you, Andy, Phobie) and libel.

“….The ships, headed by the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, will dock at the little-utilized Russian base in the Syrian port of Tartous in spring 2012, the Izvestia daily said, quoting the Russian navy.

Izvestia said the Admiral Kuznetsov — Russia’s only operational aircraft carrier — would head down from the Russian Far North in December, keeping west of Europe and heading into the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar. It would also carry around a dozen aircraft. It said the Admiral Kuznetsov would not be able to dock in Tartous itself due to the size of the vessel but anchor outside and be supplied by the smaller ships accompanying it.”

SUBLIME MENTAL PATIENT: The only way ridicule would be proper would be if you could prove the attack on America’s water supply did NOT originate in Russia, or that the Kremlin was actively seeking to crush this attack. Can you prove that? If not, shut up silly little boy, and go back to playing with your own feces.

An Illinois water utility pump failure was not the result of a cyberattack, as previously was suspected, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced.

After its investigation into the water pump failure at the Curran-Gardner Public Water District in Springfield, Ill., the DHS’ Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT), working with the FBI, found no evidence that hacking was involved, according to the bulletin released on Wednesday.

Bug out while you still can S/O, these guys are all either fanatics who hate Russia more than any Palestinian could ever hate Israel (especially considering what the hell did Russia ever do to them personally, besides giving them plenty of do-gooder NGO/DoD job opportunities) or on the perpetual Cold War/Soros payroll. It’s not like Putin personally stole their olive grove or took their tax money to start stupid wars he couldn’t possibly win after being egged on by a certain U.S. Vice President…

And thank God we never met in person Andrew, I’ve met dozens of Brits like you in Moscow who got hired more for their Oxbridge accent than IQ, and love to bitch about how much they hate Moscow but won’t go back to Airstrip One to live next to the Yobs, the banksters having made the UK unaffordable for them.

gardener1, you don’t have to worry about me anymore. Just send a memo to the Jamestown Foundation c/o Catherine Fitzpatrick, and please ask her to stop posting personal insults and libels at this forum.

Military planners at US Central Command initially calculated that it might take as long as five months before conditions would be ripe for an offensive against Kabul. After only 20 days of airstrikes, Northern Alliance forces began their march on the capital, and captured it 24 hours later.

A total of 211 US Air Force planes used Ukraine’s air corridors between 9 October and 7 November 2001, according to the Ukrainian Defence Ministry. During this period, 78 C-17 transport planes, five C-130 and 128 KC-135 tanker aircraft used the Ukrainian corridors, mainly over the neutral waters of the Black Sea where aircraft were refueled. In November and December 2001, US tanker aircraft based in Bulgaria flew about six missions a day to refuel warplanes in the Afghan theater. A Bulgarian military airport in the Black Sea became a de facto US base, with about 200 Americans stationed there. Twenty US military flights to or from Afghanistan crossed Romania each day.

As of 23 October 2001 Air Force B-2, B-1 and B-52 bombers from the 28th Air Expeditionary Wing, Diego Garcia had expended more than 80 percent of the tonnage dropped on combat missions over Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. The Air Force had flown more than 600 sorties including strike missions against al Qaeda and Taliban targets in Afghanistan. These targets included early warning radars, ground forces, command and control facilities, al Qaeda infrastructure, airfields and aircraft.

On 20 November 2001 senior officials said that more than 10,000 bombs or missiles had been dropped or fired into Afghanistan during the war, of which over 60 percent were precision-guided munitions. By the end of November 2001, the eight B-1s and ten B-52s operating from Diego Garcia had reportedly dropped most of the 4,700 tons of munitions delivered by the Air Force, comprising 72 percent of the war’s total by that time. The B-1 force was generating four sorties per day, while five B-52s were flying daily. Bomber crews who flew strike missions over Afghanistan from Diego Garcia atoll had quite a drive to get to and from their targets. Each round trip sortie, flown mostly over the vast Indian Ocean, could last from 12 to 15 hours, could involve extended stays over the country, and could be more than 5,500 miles. Including mission planning, each strike was at least a 24-hour affair. Planning was done mostly at night and would often take hours. Before a strike, aircrews studied flight plans. Most people memorized the bomb run. At Diego Garcia, the support team that kept the bombers flying worked nonstop. As the air campaign entered its fifth week, the members of the 332nd Air Expeditionary Group Munitions Maintenance Squadron were working at a breakneck pace building bombs.
By the end of November 2001, the US Air Force had flown more than 15 percent of the combat missions in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Aircraft employed included the B-1, B-2, B-52, F-15E, F-16 and AC-130H/U. These aircraft had dropped about 10,000 tons of munitions, amounting to more than 75 percent of the Operation Enduring Freedom total. More than 75 percent of the munitions expended were precision guided. By the end of November 2001, a total of 600 cluster bombs had been dropped, consisting of 450 BLU-103 and 150 BLU-87 munitions. By the end of November 2001 Air Force support aircraft, UAVs, RC-135, U-2, E-3, and EC-130E/H, had flown more than 325 missions.

Nothing about Russian airspace in the whole article, surprise, surprise…..

And

The initial attack involved 15 American bombers, including heavy B-1 and B-52 bombers, also based on Diego Garcia. There were also 25 F-14’s and F/A-18’s from the aircraft carriers Carl Vinson and Enterprise, both in the Arabian Sea, and scores of aerial refuelers and reconnaissance aircraft, both American and British, operating from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.

As for the Carrier & other ships, either the Russians were slapped down by the US (If they are in harbor when we have to intervene they will be sunk….) or they are not even capable of getting there in the first place.

I suspect, knowing the poor quality of Russian ships, that it is the latter.

Mr. X: (1) Thanks for the advertising. But I guess that would require somebody Belmont Club to read your comment and decide that it was so interesting and cogent that they just had to follow the link to SWP. Since the actual effect would likely be the exact opposite (i.e., they would figure that this site should be avoided at all costs if the likes of you hang out here), I take that back. But then again, people do tend to gape at car crashes, chase ambulances, etc. . . . (2) Friendly observation: a never a good idea for a pseudonymous individual to refer to himself in the third person–by another pseudonym.

One specific question: if everything is so much better in Moscow than London, how come so many wealthy Russians live in London, have their kids educated in the UK, etc?

Was this a trial balloon that drew a rather hostile response from the US. (Along the lines of: you might want to reconsider that, unless you want to see how a real carrier group operates, up close and personal.)

Did I read you wrong, or are you seriously suggesting that the US is crazy enough to threaten to sink the Kuznetsov if it were to visit the port of Tartus?

Come off it Anatoly, you’re smarter than that…I hope. A long deployment of the Kuznetsov as is being bruited about would be very difficult for the Russian Navy to pull off just now. Spring is probably not a typo Perfesser, it’ll take that long to get everything Bristol fashion. And when/if the Kuznetsov does deploy to the Med, clunking and dropping parts and fuel in its wake, there will be an American carrier group literally sailing circles around it. That U.S. carrier will be flying more sorties of better aircraft, more often that the Kuz can dream of putting up. The shops themselves will be full of well trained sailors, better cared for and with much higher morale than their Russian counterparts. As a matter of course, press and dignitaries from neighboring countries in the Med will be flown COD to the American carrier and feted. If the Russians did the same thing the sharp contrast in quality would be all the more apparent. See…the Russians are trying with the Bulava and other weapons systems to show that they can still play with the big boys. To a large extent, they can. But aircraft carriers are a whole different pot of pelmeni…there’s no way that Russia would come out on top in a comparison game there. Methinks that is the Perfesser’s overall point. Sink the Kuz? Bah! It’ll do more good for the U.S. every day it struggles at sea.